Associative Interference in Pavlovian Conditioning: a Function of Similarity Between the Interfering and Target Associative Structures

Overview

Journal Q J Exp Psychol (Hove)

Specialties Psychiatry
Psychology

Date 2008 Dec 17

PMID 19086301

Citations 2

Authors

Jeffrey C Amundson

Ralph R Miller

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Three lever-press suppression studies were conducted with water-deprived rats to investigate the role of similarity in proactive interference within first-order Pavlovian conditioning. Experiments la and 1b assessed the influence of stimulus complexity in proactive interference. Both experiments found greater interference when the interfering cue and target cue were composed of the same number of elements. Experiment 2 assessed the influence of context similarity in proactive interference and demonstrated that stronger proactive interference occurred when the interfering cue and the target cue were trained in the same context. The results in conjunction with other reports indicate that various types of cue interaction (e.g., interference and competition) are influenced by similarity of the interacting training events.

Citing Articles

The functions of contexts in associative learning.

Urcelay G, Miller R Behav Processes. 2014; 104:2-12.

PMID: 24614400 PMC: 4011978. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2014.02.008.

Two roles of the context in Pavlovian fear conditioning.

Urcelay G, Miller R J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process. 2010; 36(2):268-80.

PMID: 20384406 PMC: 2855167. DOI: 10.1037/a0017298.

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